Randy Newman: “I’m Dreaming Of A White President”

These days, Randy Newman is more well known for scoring films like Toy Story than he is for his political commentary. But conservatives may not be singing “You’ve Got A Friend In Me” to the legendary artist after hearing his latest song, “I’m Dreaming…”

The lyrics, which reference “White Christmas,” include this stanza: “I’m dreaming of a white President/Just like the ones we’ve always had/A real live white man/Who knows the score/How to handle money or start a war/Wouldn’t even have to tell me what we were fighting for/He’d be the right man.”

It’s a far cry from the music that he’s created in recent years for films like Disney/Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. and Cars, but in the ’70s he wrote a number of inflammatory songs that explicitly used race. For instance, “Rednecks” from his 1974 album Good Old Boys, included these similarly unsubtle lyrics: “We talk real funny down here/We drink too much and we laugh too loud/We’re too dumb to make it no Northern town/We keepin’ the n*****s down/We got no-necked oilmen from Texas/And good ol’ boys from Tennessee/And college men from L.S.U./Went in dumb, come out dumb too.” See all the lyrics to “Rednecks” here.

As for Newman’s new song, you can listen to it, and download it for free, here.